Mega Man 2 vs Pac-Man vs Pong vs The Oregon Trail 2009
Results Round One Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 Ulti's Analysis A big debate heading into this contest was Tetris vs Mega Man. Personally, I contend Tetris is a part of the holy grail of NES-era games that would just destroy and annihilate anything else from this era -- along with Final Fantasy, Mario 1, Mario 3 and Zelda 1. Others believe a couple of the Mega Man games are also deserving of this tier, but this debate thankfully ended on the second day of the contest. Before getting into Mega Man 2, the Pac-Man/Pong/Oregon Trail triumvirate was a decent pre-contest debate. Thanks to L-Block's run in 2007, people will always try finding the next L-Block. That one entrant capable of a mid-contest joke rally that shocks everyone. The Oregon Trail, along with Battletoads, were the obvious candidates this contest. Both are huge 4chan fad titles, and Oregon Trail especially was played by everyone in grade school. For two and a half hours, Oregon Trail was a legitimate threat here. It had no chance of winning this particular match, but potential joke rallies only need to advance once or twice to get momentum and internet bandwagon rallies going. Oregon Trail stayed neck and neck with the favored Pac-Man, before ultimately and wholly collapsing. The Oregon Trail, for all of its potential, could not keep up with Pac-Man more than a few hours and we saw this contest's L-Block dead in its first match. Pac-Man would go on to a very respectable second place finish, Oregon Trail to a decent enough third place, and even Pong didn't do too badly for being in last. Given how badly some other last place games did this contest, Pong's 16.54% was not a bad score at all. Oddly enough, the only game in this poll that looked bad was Mega Man 2. When some expect you to contend with Tetris (and Tetris is no slouch), you don't go out and score 56% on Pac-Man. 56% on Pac-Man cannot be explained away by any LFF cop-outs, especially given Metroid nearly broke 70% on Pac-Man in 2004. The same Metroid that was SFF skull-****ed by Mario 3 that year. Mario 3 SFFd Metroid, which might have SFFd Pac-Man, and Mega Man 2 goes out and only scores 56% on the twice-SFFd latter? And then it was supposed to go out and beat Tetris? I can understand defending something so silly pre-contest with fanboyism, but guys like Black Turtle and Lopen were trying to believe in MM2 > Tetris even after this match. You guys are officially on crack, and I'm even a giant Mega Man fan along with you guys. No matter how you slice it, Mega Man 2 looked really bad here. It would also get worse for Mega Man before this contest was over. Way, way worse. Match Trends Ngamer's Same Day Analysis Match Prediction I guess I'm just not as sold on MM2 as everyone else must be; sure MM is a solid NNer, but Europe hates this guy and his entire series, so there's no way MM2 has the same kind of blowout potential as what we're seeing from Tetris today. For example, check out how MM vs Nero last Summer went if you look at the European votes only: * Mega Man 38.74% 7324 * Nero 33.94% 6417 That's the kind of performance an NNer is supposed to allow to Auron or Vincent, not NERO! So yeah, I don't see MM2 cracking 50% by much, if at all. Pac-Man is getting compared a bunch to DK, which I think is fair. Sure the game/character will collapse to anything iconic, but there's a large gap between MM2 and something like Mario 3 so I think the recognition will result in a good showing. As for Oregon Trail, ehh, I'll admit that it scares me a little bit. If any of these 128 games have the potential for an L-Blockish joke run it would certainly be TOT, but between Pac's recognizability and MM's strength I don't see the Oregon rally wagon ever making it past the first river. That just leaves us with Pong, a game I'm seeming compared a bunch to Space Invaders, and again I have to agree with that sentiment. It's universally known, which works great against cult hits like RCR, but with all three other options being arguably about as well known and definitely better loved, Pong will probably be doing well just to make it to double digits. And that's why my preds for this one look a little something like * Mega Man 2 - 45.86% * Pac-Man - 26.37% * The Oregon Trail - 16.76% * Pong - 11.01% Feelin' good about these! Next Day Review Hey hey, another good result for me! Oregon had a little more punch than I'd expected early, but fell apart as soon as the Americans fell asleep just as I'd thought. And yikes, I was a little too right about MM2 underwhelming... My Tetris > MM2 is looking great as a result, but my MMX > Link's Awakening and MM3 > FF4 (R2) are shaking in their boots right now! External Links * Match Updates * Guru Match Predictions * Oracle Match Results • Previous Match • Next Match Category:2009 Spring Contest Matches